Featured Glass Artist: Robin Kittleson

Well known for her functional fused glass creations, Robin Kittleson, owner of Robin Kittleson Studios in Geneva, IL, captures her love of color, texture and design in every handmade piece. Using only the highest quality materials and production standards, her kiln-formed items are meant to be used, lived with, and enjoyed for years to come.

With a degree in fine arts, Robin spent her initial years working as a graphic designer. This didn’t always satisfy her creative needs so a side business of creating hand painted textiles was born. These were sold through wholesale fine art shows and Robin was lucky enough to have orders keeping her busy year round. A passion soon became work — painting the same thing, in the same color way from her home studio — and left her feeling isolated. She wanted to get out, interact with other people, explore and experiment. She started dabbling in other mediums, eventually finding her way to glass. Glass was the perfect medium for bringing all the things she loved together.

Robin feels that glass is the perfect blend of art, science and math. She has always had a passion for testing and experimenting, trying to figure out why things happen. Glass is one of those materials that you can never know everything about — you can master certain aspects of it, but there is always more to learn.

Robin works in glass full-time and has a production line of functional fused glass that she sells at outdoor fine art shows. She makes what she wants to, interacting with people every weekend at the shows, getting immediate feedback plus have the satisfaction of knowing her customers are taking home something they love and will use for years to come.

One of Robin’s main challenges in working with glass is not having enough time in the day to get everything in her head into the kiln. She encourages other glass artists to find their unique voice, and vision and work toward that. Figure out what your artist story is and what makes you unique and be true to it.

We have watched Robin’s skills grow tremendously over the years and are proud to have her teaching in our classroom. Her gentle manner and extensive knowledge is always well received by the students. She is a student favorite for sure!

“Even with the best planning, I find myself at times out of a specific sheet or accessory glass needed to complete a custom order. I know I can depend on Hoy’s to have exactly what I need, when I need it. Ed Hoy’s is a studio artist’s best partner — they support and understand both the creative vision and solid business practices.”